Carbon dioxide is the major gas emitted in the exhaust of stationary or mobile Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs). Globally, a few million motorized vehicles are produced. Most of these employ ICEs which add up to a few million ICEs each year. The emissions from these ICEs are released into the atmosphere. The increased emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has several undesirable consequences such as global warming (1, 2, 3). Thus the Removal of carbon dioxide at the source level into a non-emission or non-polluting entity would be highly desirable. Attempt to fix carbon dioxide from ICEs (stationary or mobile) and convert in situ has not been made. In situ conversion of carbon dioxide into some soluble product, which could be separated and handled in a localized manner, would enable controlling carbon dioxide emission into atmosphere. The product of carbon dioxide fixation could be a valuable material. It is theoretically possible to regenerate the starting material used for carbon dioxide fixation if a five carbon compound is fixed, theoretically, after five cycles of fixation, it is possible to generate a five carbon compound and release the original five molecules and thus allowing for their recycling in the fixation step. Fixation of carbon dioxide and subsequent regeneration of the first molecule used in the fixation step would enable recyclable fixation, which has not been attempted. The fixation and recycling allows obtaining soluble molecules, which could be handled and not emitted into the atmosphere. The fixation and recyclability provides scope for future research where a fuel molecule could be regenerated using an appropriate intermediate first molecule for fixation and a suitable catalyst. Internal combustion engines utilize fossil fuel which has a limited source. With the increased consumption by a fractional increase in the number of ICEs each year the anticipated consequence is the accelerated exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves (4, 5, 6). Research along these lines may also lead to the possibility of developing a fuel recycling technology.
So far a method, a device or utility has not been developed which would enable the fixation of carbon dioxide in emission gases from ICEs. I provide description of utilization of existing knowledge for carbon dioxide fixation used by green plants. In the green plants, the carbon dioxide is fixed in two phases described as light and dark phases (7, 8, 9). In the dark phase, the carbon dioxide is fixed onto a five carbon organic molecule (Ribulose 1, 5 bisphosphate or RuBP). In the light phase, solar energy is used to generate an organic molecule ATP. The organic molecule, ATP, is subsequently used in the recycling process to generate the five carbon organic molecule, RuBP. In difference to plants, conversion of ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate in this device is made by using electrochemical energy generated by solar cells.
In the present invention, for the first time, I demonstrate that carbon dioxide from the exhausts of internal combustion engines can be fixed to form a soluble organic three carbon organic molecule (3-Phosphoglycerate). A modular solar device allows the formation of ATP molecule using solar energy effected by a membrane bound biocatalyst. Another modular device utilized three carbon organic molecule and ATP to regenerate the five carbon organic molecule for a fresh round of carbon dioxide fixation.